


and to my surprise we found my words

by abeebumbling



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23734240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abeebumbling/pseuds/abeebumbling
Summary: There's an infuriatingly polite ghost in the Archives and it won't stop making Jon tea.
Relationships: Jonmartin - Relationship, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 64
Kudos: 554





	and to my surprise we found my words

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'ready now' by dodie

It starts with Jon sitting alone in his office, trying to record a statement as he viciously fights against allergies. He’s so congested his head feels twice as heavy than usual and as he labors through another paragraph of the shakily hand written notes, he sneezes.

“Oh! Bless you.”

“Thank-“

He stops, does a double take. 

It starts with Jon sitting _alone_ in his office.

\- - -

After badgering his two coworkers and rewinding the tape a dozen times, he comes to the conclusion that Tim isn’t trying to prank him. He lets himself forget about it, tucking the tape onto one of the many disheveled shelves of the archives and convincing himself that he was overworked and paranoid from all the things he’d been reading.

It’s fine. 

Until the cups of tea start appearing on his desk. 

Jon doesn’t think much of it, until he calls Tim into his office about a follow-up that would have been impossible had it not been for a heavy dose of charm.

“By the way, thank you for the tea Tim.”

“Oh, that’s not me, that’s Sasha I think,” he replies. “It’s good isn’t it? I was actually going to ask her if she’d make some right now, you want in?”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude, it’s-“  
“So that’s a yes then, got it,” and with no time for Jon to protest, he leaves. He comes back two minutes later, looking befuddled. “So.” He leans against the doorframe. “Turns out Sasha thought you were making the tea.”  
“I… see?”

“You know what that means,”

Tim’s eyes are glinting. Jon sighs.

“Tim, please don’t say it’s the-“

“It’s the polite ghost.”

Jon puts his face in his hands.

“I should have never told you about that,” he groans.

“Are we talking about the polite ghost?”

It’s Sasha, poking her head through the door.

“No,” Jon answers at the same time Tim says, “Yes!”

“We should find a nickname for it.” She enters Jon’s office. “Polite ghost is a little long.”

“Tea ghost?” Tim suggests.

“That’s just one syllable shorter,” Jon grumbles.

“But it’s still shorter, so let’s start there,” Sasha responds. “So, any theories on tea ghost?”

“Yes,” Jon interrupts. “There is no tea ghost, someone is just making us tea as a nice gesture and that’s it.”

Tim rolls his eyes.

“The physically closest person to us that doesn’t work in the archives is Rosie and she sounds nothing like whoever blessed you after your sneeze.”

The person blessing me and the person making tea are not necessarily the same,” Jon counters resolutely.

“Yes, well, someone still did bless you while you were supposedly alone in your office Jon,” Sasha says. “C’mon, you work in the _Magnus Institute_ , you have to have some belief for the supernatural,”

Jon forces himself to exhale through his nose, in a makeshift, non-committal laugh.

“My beliefs have nothing to do with my work,” he says firmly, reaching for some papers on his desk. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a statement to record,”

Tim suddenly claps his hand together. His face is full of mischief.

“What if we manage to get a statement from tea ghost?”

\- - -

And that’s how Jon finds himself huddled behind the Archive’s break room door with Tim and Sasha as they all watch a mug of oversteeped tea Jon made grow cold on the coffee table.

“Please remind me what we’re doing here again.” Jon sighs, exasperated.

“We’re luring in the ghost,” Sasha says.

“With _tea_?”

“Well, it likes tea,” Tim says.

“It likes _making_ tea,” Jon retorts. “If it’s the one making it,”

“Aha! So you’re saying you believe in the potential of ghosts making tea?” Sasha smiles.

“I-“ He’s interrupted by Tim aggressively shushing them.

“ _Look!_ ” He whispers enthusiastically.

The mug is floating. Jon feels his jaw drop. Two seconds later it’s joined by the note they’d left on the table. It was just a ‘Hello, tea ghost! Thank you for the tea’ hastily scribbled on a post it in old biro.

“Cursive?” 

The sound of the voice is wavering and tentative, hard to make out and would probably lost in a crowd. The tone is vaguely amused. Tim elbows Sasha who’d written the note, and she gently flicks him on the forehead with her thumb and index. Jon can’t join in because it sounds exactly like whatever told him ‘bless you’ when he was _alone_ in his office.

The mug tilts back slightly and some of the tea splatters on the floor despite there being the distinct sound of someone sipping. Jon finds that his hands are in fists. This situation is very much out of his depth. The mug shifts upright almost immediately.

“ _Blegh,_ ”

The voice is clearer now and very obviously disgusted. Next to Jon, Tim bites his lip, eyes bulging. Before he can clap a hand to his mouth, a snort of laughter escapes him. There’s a gasp. The mug shudders, then clatters to the floor spilling it’s contents all over the wood.

“Aw Tim, you scared it away.” Sasha gives him a push as she steps into the break room. “We’re sorry, we just wanted to prove to our boss that you were real,” she calls out.

Tim is still cracking up by himself.

“That tea must have _really_ sucked,” he wheezes. “Great job, Jon. Jon?”

Jon realises that he must look exactly how he feels, which is not great to put it lightly. 

“I… I’m gonna sit down,” he mumbles, stumbling towards one of the break room chairs. Sasha glances back at him.

“God, Jon you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.” She pauses. “ _Oh._ ”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Jon manages. 

“I think it’s time, we head home,” Tim says. He offers a hand to Jon. “Bet you wanna get out of this place,”

Jon takes it gratefully, still swaying slightly on his feet. They leave without another word about what had happened.

The next day, the floor is clear of tea and the mug is drying by the sink. Tim and Sasha exchange glances. Jon ignores them as much as he ignores the fresh cup of tea on his desk greeting him as he enters his office.

\- - -

Jon should have never come into work. The pressure in his sinus feels comparable to the one at the deepest caves in the ocean and his throat is so raw that his voice dies a few minutes into his first statement of the day. Still, he doesn’t sip from the mug next to his cup of pens. It smells heavily of ginger and lemon, even as it cools. It would probably help if he drank it. Instead he heaves himself to his feet and drags them all the way to the break room to make his own cup. Without ginger or lemon. Just to be spiteful.

“Jon, you look _awful_ ,” Tim says as soon as he goes inside. Jon rolls his eyes.

“Good morning to you too Tim.”

“And you _sound_ awful.” Sasha takes a sip of her tea. Clearly, she’s not copying Jon’s ghost tea strike and from the empty cup next to Tim’s hand, neither is Tim. “Go home, Jon,”

He waves her off as he fills the kettle.

“I’ll go home when I’m dead,” he rasps.

“You will be dead if you don’t go home.”

He wants to respond, something snappy and final, but a tickle in his nose distracts him and he sneezes violently.  
“Bless you,”

“Thank you,”

“That’s alright,”

Then Jon lifts his head, feeling his heart skip a beat. Tim and Sasha are staring at him, Sasha’s mug comically paused in the middle of her lifting it to her mouth.

“ _Again?_ ” He must be exhausted from his cold because instead of being afraid, he’s furious. “Who the hell _are_ you?”

There’s a silence and Jon thinks he might have scared it off again. Good. This reassuring thought doesn’t last long however, as Tim falls from his chair because suddenly the voice comes from the seat next to him.

“Oh. I suppose I haven’t introduced myself, have I?”

\- - -

The ghost is possibly called Martin. 

“What do you mean, you ‘think’ it’s Martin?”

Jon has decided to be as rude as possible to this- this… _thing_. A coping mechanism is a coping mechanism, even if it’s a bad one.

“I dunno, it’s just… hazy,”  
It’s voice is small when answering to Jon’s questions. Is _it_ small, Jon finds himself wondering. It’s definitely there, sitting on one of the table’s chairs, they can all hear it’s voice coming from there but no one can actually see it. Instead, they all focus on the spoon Martin (?) appears to be nervously fiddling with. It turns itself over and over in thin air so much that Jon feels actually nauseous. Or maybe he’s just really sick. He sits down at the table rubbing his forehead.

“So how’d you die Martin?” Sasha elbows Tim. “What? He-“ He glances in what they believe is Martin’s general direction. “Is ‘he’ correct?”  
“Oh! Oh, yes, it is,”

He. Now Martin is a person to him. Great.

“He doesn’t have to answer,”

“It- it’s alright, I don’t actually really remember, like I said, it’s hazy. I was- I was alone? Doing some work, I suppose,”

“So you worked at the institute?” Sasha prompts.

“I think so, yes. This place is familiar,”

She gets up, and Jon sees her eyes are lost in thought.

“Let me get back to you,”

\- - -

A day later and they’re back in the break room, Sasha spreading papers on the table.

“I went through the institute’s employee records and I found quite a few Martins.” She nods at the empty chair. “We can go through them and see which is most familiar to you,”

The papers move, flicking over one and another and Jon feels his pulse quicken for a second before realising it must be Martin rifling through them.

“You- you really didn’t have to do all of this.” He sounds flustered. “Thank you,”

Jon sighs to himself. He doesn’t know what he’s doing here. He feels marginally better than yesterday, but still awfully sniffly. Morbid curiosity, he supposes. An amnesiac ghost certainly can’t do much in terms of a good statement. He half-heartedly picks up one of the papers all the same, there’s seven in total. As he reads through it he frowns. 

The employee in question on the paper is listed to be an archival assistant. Yet, there’s no Martin among his assistants as far as he knows. He suddenly remembers Elias telling him he’d have three assistants in the archives with him when he’d first been informed about his new position. Huh.

“Say, does Martin Blackwood sound familiar at all to you?

\- - -

The ghost is called Martin Blackwood.

And, as it turns out, Martin Blackwood is only good at two things: making tea that Jon still won’t drink and getting on Jon’s nerves.

He’s not corporeal enough to work, files always slipping out of his hands and sending papers everywhere which in turn embarasses him enough to lose his voice and any ability to pick them back up. His tangibility is a fickle thing. Maybe he’s just really clumsy which makes it all actually worse. In theory, he should be qualified to work this job and he’s even offered to but in reality, he really, really, _really_ sucks, forever dithering, asking questions about the littlest things and mucking up the simplest task.

All he can do effectively is make tea.

“It’s weird, I know, and I swear I’m not making excuses,” he tries to explain. “It’s just that it’s so easy to do for me, I think _oh, I could really go for some tea right now_ and then I think, _well why not make some for the others,_ and in the process I just kind of forget that I’m like this, you know? Then I suddenly have four cups of tea before I can think about it again,”

“It must be like muscle memory,” Sasha says. “Sort of. Like an autopilot thing. You probably used to do it a lot,”

“Well whatever it is, never stop Martin.” Tim swallows the last of his mug. “I don’t even like tea that much,”

“I won’t.” And although they can’t see him, his smile is audible. Jon huffs.

\- - -

“I just don’t understand why you’re so _mean_ to him. All he does is make tea and fuss about us,”

Tim is sitting on Jon’s desk, conveniently on top of the file that Jon was looking at.

“Tim, please, I have work to do,”

“You always have work to do.” Tim sighs. “C’mon Jon, I get that it’s your thing to be a bit of an arse but Martin doesn’t deserve it, at least drink his tea when he watches you,”

“How do I even know if he watches me? I can’t _see_ him.” He swats at Tim with a rolled up statement. “Now get out,”

“You _know_ what I mean,” Tim says, now practically lounging on Jon’s desk completely ignoring the second sentence.

“I just don’t think we should entertain someone’s particularly elaborate idea of a bad joke,” he replies stiffly. “And the tea isn’t good,” he lies.

“What?” Tim scoffs. “Come on, Jon, don’t pull that skeptic stuff now, I get it’s your job but seriously, why?”

“Because, Tim!” 

He hadn’t meant to shout and he was going to reel himself back in, but Tim was never one for deescalating especially when he had a goal in mind.

“Because what, Jon? Because you are in fact a jackass?”

“Tim, I am your _superior._ ” His teeth are gritted.

“Don’t you pull that card on me! You’re also my friend, Jon,”

“ _Tim,_ ”

“And you still haven’t said why you-“

“Because I’m _scared_ Tim,” he explodes, throwing the statement he’d been holding on the floor. “Because everyday I get more proof of all these horrible things being real and I’m scared.” He breathes out. “Now, get _out!_ ”

“I-“

“ _Out!_ ” 

“Alright, alright.” Tim slips off the desk and with two strides of his long legs is out of the door.

Jon heaves out a sigh, pressing his palms hard against his desk to ground himself. He’d just made a monumental fool of himself. He’s already cringing at the apology he’d have to make later. It doesn’t stop him from reaching out for the tape recorder and picking up papers from the floor. His hands are shaking. To steel himself, he takes a long drink of tea, perfectly brewed and sweetened to his liking. He pauses before putting it back down, looking at his reflection in the brown liquid and realising what he’s just done.

“Shit.”

\- - -

So now, Jon drinks the tea and ignores when Tim glances at him with a smirk when he does. He doesn’t have time for this. He has to follow up on a maddeningly difficult statement. He doesn’t feel like he can prove anything from it but it’s one of the ones that will only let itself be recorded on tape.

Somehow, it only puts him more on edge.

He doesn’t _like_ sending his assistants on weird and dangerous quests, believe it or not. Jon knows he’s not always the nicest but he’s not downright _cruel_. He’d thought of sending Martin, who doesn’t seem tangible enough to get hurt in any way and who’s voice seems to ring clearer ever since Jon started reluctantly drinking the incessant teas.

He’d suggested and was met with a surprisingly firm no.

“Why not? You said you wanted to help,”

“And I do, Jon, but I can’t leave the institute, I’ve tried but it makes me feel like I’m… slipping away? I think I might… disappear if I leave,”

Jon couldn’t help his curiosity then, especially without Sasha or Tim there to quell his questions with a look.

“Do you think you’re tied to this place then?”

“I guess so but…” He’d hesitated, voice dropping to a low volume.

“ _But_?” Jon prompts, not wanting Martin to disappear when he was actually getting somewhere with him.

“But I think we _all_ are, aren’t we? Stop me if I’m overstepping but… you don’t seem to love this job Jon, but you haven’t quit. I know Tim has considered but he… he told me he couldn’t and Sasha’s staying out of obligation, I think,”

He hadn’t thought Martin to be so observant. Jon chews on his lip, frowning.

“I… I suppose.” He gets up abruptly. “Right then, I’ll get back to work.” He nodded vaguely in Martin’s direction.

“Call out if you need anything,” came the cheerful reply.

“Right,” says Jon trying not to sound as troubled as he felt. “I will.”

\- - -

When Tim volunteers to investigate Carlos Vittery’s apartment, Jon sees the pity in his eyes and can’t take it. He knew he looked rough today and he knew Tim had been handling him with kid gloves after his outburst a few days ago. He had the vague sense that he’d also tipped off Sasha about it. Just because he hadn’t slept for more than three consecutive hours last night due to statement induced night terrors did not mean he needed pity.

“ _Actually_ Tim, I think I’ll go myself.”

He was met with protests from both his assistants and despite Martin not saying anything, Jon’s sure that the floating mug is stirred by an also floating spoon a little too vigorously. It clinks in an agitated manner that Jon finds somewhat amusing.

“You always all complain that I spend too much time here, so I’m getting out,” he argues. “Also _I’m_ the head archivist here and I get to decide,”

“That is _not_ a job for a head archivist,” Sasha replies. “But you also look like you could really use some fresh air and sunlight, so alright,”

And despite Tim continuing to try to convince Jon to let _him_ do it and the continuous floating mug loudly stirring itself, Jon knows he’s won.

\- - -

Jon could have _kicked_ his past self.

Jane Prentiss was not supposed to be there. 

But she had been and now, whenever Jon stops running to catch his breath, he looks behind him and sees a silver worm. He runs like he never has before, heart pounding in his throat, cursing himself for not being fit enough to outrun a woman who was more worms than human it seemed.

He doesn’t run to the institute, he’s not that stupid, but maybe leading Jane Prentiss straight to his apartment wasn’t a great idea either.

“Archivist…” He hears her cooing as he stoppers the door, the windows, the vents with blankets, tape, _anything._ “Archivist, I know you’re in there….”

\- - -

All of the power is dead and all Jon has is a half charged phone with a cracked screen from when he’d dropped it as Prentiss lunged at him just a few hours ago. He’s not a dimwit. He picked it back up, albeit it taking some scrabbling.

Sasha calls him before he actually calls her, making him jump as he hurriedly mutes his phone.

“Jon!” She breathes out, relieved as he picks up. “Are you alright? You’ve been gone hours with no update!”  
“Hello Sasha, and, erm, no,”

“No?”

“No, I’m not alright,”

He proceeds to explain the situation and vigorously shuts her down when she insists to come to him and help.

“Jon-“  
“It’s too dangerous Sasha! You’ve researched the statements yourself, you know what happens to people who approach her! Just stay away and eventually she’ll leave,”

“Jon you have no power and you told me your phone is running low on battery, how the _hell_ are we gonna know if you’re still alive?”

“Well,” Jon says grimly, “I suppose we’ll just have to find out.”

And his phone dies with one last chime as a farewell.

\- - -

Jon’s nights are almost sleepless, spent clutching a kitcken knife too tightly and roaming around his apartment checking for openings and worms. He knows she’s there, hears her sing, hears the _hive_ sing. It penetrates his skull and makes his teeth ache.

He tries to eat regularly but often seems to forget, he tries to remember to drink but his throat always seems dry. He makes tea but it’s so bitter, oversteeped because as he put the tea bag into the hot water he swore he heard a noise and couldn’t let himself pause without checking every room for worms three times. By the time he’s done his tea is not only bitter, but lukewarm as well.

He downs it all the same, shuddering. It was small but precious comfort after all and he so desperately needed comfort.

\- - -

“ _Jon!_ ” 

Tim hugs him so tight, Jon can barely breathe and though he usually doesn’t, he returns the embrace. It practically brings tears to his eyes. He would have never thought he’d miss Tim so much. When Tim does eventually let him go, Sasha barrels into him.

“You idiot!” She squeezes him, her voice hoarse. “You _idiot!_ You’re never going to follow up a statement again! Never!”

Jon finds himselfs laughing despite the tears stinging his eyes.

“That would be wonderful,” he says thickly. “But I doubt this is the last we see of Prentiss,”

He feels another presence in the room, awkward and dithering.

“Martin?” He calls out, feeling his face flush slightly at how happy he sounds. 

“Oh _Jon._ ” His voice is full of pained relief, Jon feels more than hears him shuffle closer. “I was so worried,”

“I’ll say,” Tim snorts. “Your tea tasted _awful_ for a second there,”

Martin laughs and Jon realises he’s never heard him do so. It’s lovely. He shakes his head. Isolation must have done something to his brain. He realises he feels a phantom weight squeezing his shoulder. He must be even more addled tha he thought. Unless…

“Martin? You can..?”

“Oh,” Martin says. The weight drops from his shoulder suddenly. “ _Oh!_ Yes, sorry, it happened while you we’re gone, I’m, um, more real now? More tangible? It- it feels nice,”

“Yeah, we can actually high five now.” Tim puts his hand up and there’s the faintest sound of a clap. “We’re gonna have to make up an archive staff handshake,”

“God, I missed you all _so_ much,” Jon blurts out then blushes brightly as Sasha ‘aw’s at him and Tim snickers.

“So did we Jon,” Tim says clapping his shoulder. “Even if you’re the crustiest boss I’ve ever had,”

Jon straightens, runs a hand through his unkept hair and adjusts his glasses.

“Speaking of which, I think we need to catch up on some work,”

Sasha snorts but struggles out of the group hug Tim had locked them in.

“It’s good to have you back Jon,” she says fondly.

“It’s good to _be_ back, Sasha,” he replies, not even trying to stifle his smile.

\- - -

They all agree it would be safer to let Jon spend the next few weeks in the Archives’ spare room. Jon is the most relieved. He doesn’t even go back to his apartment for spare clothes, opting instead to get some from the nearby shopping center, as well as some other necessities and some food.

The last time he’d spent a night there was a bit before he’d known of Martin. Even as he got closer to him Jon felt it too awkward to spend the night there, especially after learning that Martin can’t leave the institute and doesn’t sleep.

“It doesn’t come to me,” he’d said with a shrug. “Perks of not being corporeal I guess,”

Now, Jon felt thankful of him being there, chatting to him over a cup of tea after Tim and Sasha had left for the day. He was updating Jon on what he’d missed, mostly office gossip and Martin’s progress in tangibility. Usually Jon couldn’t stand small talk, but he found himself smiling at Martin’s warm, pleasant speech. A few minutes after draining his mug and he finds his eyelids drooping. Martin gasps.

“Oh gosh, you must be exhausted, sorry Jon, I don’t mean to keep you up,”

“It’s alright, I-I’d rather not be alone right now if I’m honest,”

If it had been anyone else at the archives, Jon was sure he’d been teased, but he was talking to _Martin_. Martin who he’d first known as the polite tea ghost.

“Yeah,” says Martin softly. “I understand,”

Jon wishes he could see him then, even if it was just for a second.

\- - -

Jon carries a corkscrew around nowadays, at Martin’s suggestion. He’d scoffed at it at first but found that it gave him comfort when he couldn’t sleep. It’s soon joined by a CO2 fire extinguisher after Sasha’s encounter with ‘Michael’.

He talks with Martin a lot nowadays, first thing in the morning, last thing before bed. He feels so alone when he shuts the door of his room to retire for his fitful nights. He wishes Martin would just come in with him, but Martin’s too polite to intrude and Jon is too awkward to ask.

Until one night when he dreams of the noise of someone knocking slowly on his door, of that horribly moist squirming, of that incessant droning song, of a dark, isolated apartment and he wakes up, face bathed in sweat and tears. 

For a moment he can barely breathe, convinced Prentiss was about to break into his apartment then he remembers where he is. _You’re safe,_ he tells his racing heart and his shaking hands. _It’s alright, you’re safe._ But he still stumbles out of the cramped cot and creeps towards the break room and the sound of someone humming softly.

“Martin?” His voice is barely a whisper in the break room. He tries again. “Martin?”

“Jon?”

It’s surprised. The floorboards creek as Martin hurriedly steps towards Jon. He’s more substantial than ever now that Jon’s taken to live in the archives. It’s a relief to Jon, actually, who can now hear him coming as opposed to jumping out of his skin whenever Martin spoke to him.

“ _Jon_? What’s happened? Are you okay?” The surprise has turned to concern and it overwhelms Jon for a second.

“I-I-“ He gulps, suddenly choked with tears all over again. “I-I just had a bad dream- Prentiss- I was _alone_ and I- I-“ He feels like a child, stammering on the brink of tears, and when he can’t stutter the words out anymore, he just reaches a hand out blindly.

He finds Martin’s hand somehow and feels it squeeze just tightly enough to take the edge off his panic. He breathes out. His eyes close. 

“It’s alright,” Martin’s voice is as clear as his own now, still he speaks softly. “You’re alright Jon. You’re safe,”

The tightness in Jon’s chest eases just slightly. Without really thinking he pulls Martin’s hand closer, unintentionally prompting him to step forward. His hand is suddenly warmer in Jon’s which makes him open his eyes. He blinks, rubs them with his free hand, blinks again.

“Martin?”

“Yes Jon?”

“I…” Jon, embarassingly enough, finds himself speechless. “I can _see_ you,”

\- - -

“You’re _taller_ than me?” Tim exclaims standing next to Martin. “I can’t believe it!”

Jon would have scoffed but he understands what Tim means, everything about Martin’s mannerism made him imagine a small, timid person. Martin, however, was tall, with wide shoulders and a wide stance and was altogether chubby, with a round face emphasized by round glasses which, from behind, had two small nervously blinking eyes.

He still wasn’t completely _there_ in a sense. There wasn’t any color to him at all apart from a foggy gray, and he was more see through than not. You had to squint when you looked at him because alltogether it gave a very blurry image.

“This is so cool,” Sasha says, circling around Martin. “Are you sure you don’t know what exactly provoked this?”

Jon holds his breath as Martin shakes his head mutely. The motion is a stuttering one, like a glitching screen. Martin is examining his own hands, as though it’s the first time he’s seen them in a while. Jon realises that that’s actually the case. Martin stops to brush his hair out of his face, it’s curly and seems to have overgrown what would have usually been a closely cropped cut. It looks cute, Jon finds himself thinking. He shakes his head hard, frowning.

\- - -

Ever since that night, Jon can’t stop thinking about Martin.

Now that he has an actual image of him in his mind, his brain is offering hundreds of possibilities and ideas he’d managed to squash to the deepest part of his subconscious until now.

His hand in Martin’s soft, overgrown curls. His hand in Martin’s hand fitting perfectly in the spaces between his finger just like that night he first saw him. His lips on the dimple on Martin’s left cheek.

He finds himself blushing hotly at the last one, burying his face in the odd smelling pillow of the archive’s cot as though to muffle his very thoughts.

\- - -

“Martin?”

“Mm?”

“Are you alright?”

Martin looks up from his cup of tea abruptly.

“I… I suppose not.” He smiles at Jon. “Is it _that_ obvious?”

Jon smiles back. He does that a lot more often when it’s just the two of them.

“I think you keep forgetting that we can see you now,”

Martin chuckles.

“I guess so.” He shrugs. Jon waits. Martin clears his throat. “I… I’ve been remembering a lot about my life recently,”

Jon bites back the urge to ask him to make a statement. He’s glad he did once Martin speaks again.

“It’s- it wasn’t great. I was very lonely. There wasn’t anyone except my mum but she-“ His eyes drop to the floor. “It was lonely. I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk about it actually,”

“That’s alright,” Jon says, trying to mimic the softness of Martin’s voice when Martin reassures _him._ Then just to fill the silence that follows, he lifts his mug and solemnly says: “Cheers,”

That at least makes Martin smile, revealing that single dimple on his left cheek. Jon’s chest aches gently.

“Cheers,” Martin replies.

\- - -

“Martin? _Did_ you die here?”

The question seems to catch Martin off guard. Maybe asking it in the middle of a paranormal infestation-siege of flesh eating worms on the institute wasn’t the best of times but if Jon was going to die he desperately wanted to know because at this point he was fairly convinced Martin _hadn’t_ at this point.

“Jon… can I be honest with you?”

He’s worrying at his bottom lip, his eyes not quite meeting Jon’s. He fidgets with the corkscrew, very similarly to how he did with a spoon when Jon first met him. Jon finds himself smiling, then grimacing as he remembers the holes it just buried into his legs.

“Of course,”

“I- I don’t think I _actually_ did,” he says. Then suddenly he can’t stop. “I told you that I’ve been remembering more right? And I-I-I think I know how I became like _this_ \- it was the day before I was going to start as an archival assistant and I lost track of time at work and all of a sudden I was all by myself and I wandered into the archives,”

He stops to inhale shakily. Jon find one of his hands reaching out and Martin takes it gratefully.

“It was so _empty._ And I-I tried to call my mother then, because I felt just so- so _by myself,_ you know? But a worker at the home told me she refused the call and I just… I felt myself fade, like that first night you saw me,” - Jon blushes - “but- but the _other_ way if that makes sense? After that I just remember…”

His eyes close. For a second, he flickers, voice wavering. Jon shifts closer with a wince, and squeezes the cold hand in his tightly. Martin clears his throat.

“I… I remember a lot of fog, so much of it, and- and the sound of the sea far away calling to me, asking me to come closer, and I wandered towards it for a long time, then…” And he smiles. Jon looks at him confused.

“ _Then?_ ”

Martin giggles. Jon swears he’s blushing.

“Then I hear someone sneeze,”

Jon pauses. Then he does a double take. Talk about deja-vue.

“ _Me?_ ”

“Yes! And suddenly I’m back in the archives and you’re looking around like-“ He smiles. “Like you just saw -or heard I guess- a ghost,”

“But I didn’t, did I?”

“No,” says Martin. “I don’t know what I am, but I’m fairly sure I’m _not_ a ghost,”

Before Jon can reply, a deafening thump comes from the wall opposite the door. He grips the CO2 canister tighter, Martin doing the same with the corkscrew. A second thump. He turns to Martin and finds him looking back at him in such a way that blood fills Jon’s cheeks. A third thump.

“Martin,” he says, suddenly impulsive. “I-“

And the wall collapses.

“Hi guys!”

“ _Tim?!_ ”

\- - -

“Jon, I don’t think-“

“Martin, _please_. Trust me,”

It’s been a week since Jon got back from quarantine. When he’d returned, running to the archives, some wounds oozing under the bandages from the effort, Martin was nothing but a wavering voice again. This time, however him, Sasha and Tim understood how it worked (despite not really knowing what it was) and by Friday Martin was more concrete than ever, a hint of color spread across his see through figure.

But now he was biting his vaguely pink lip, looking as unsure as ever.

“But what if I-“

( “And I do, Jon, but I can’t leave the institute, I’ve tried but it makes me feel like I’m… slipping away? I think I might… disappear if I leave,” )

“You won’t. I’m here. Tim and Sasha are waiting outside. You’re _not_ alone. You won’t be. You don’t _need_ this place to be with us,”

“I’m _scared_ Jon,”

His eyes are wide, a little tearful. Jon’s chest aches not so gently.

“I know,”

“But… but I trust you,”

Jon puts out a hand and Martin takes it. Slowly, they start to make their way out of the Archives. Martin’s barely breathing but Jon can feel his nails digging into his fingers. Good. As they step out of the Archives section and into another part of the institute, he feels Martin waver, the soft hand in his get just slightly lighter.

“ _Jon,_ ”

It’s urgent, panicked. Jon turns to him, takes Martin’s other hand in his own, now walking backwards to keep pulling Martin along.

“Look at me, Martin,”

His eyes are hazy. He’s straining against Jon’s pull.

“Jon-“ It’s pleading but what makes Jon’s heart stutter is how _far_ it sounds.

_“Martin,_ look at me,tell me what do you see,” 

_“I- I see you.” He inhales shakily, laughs the laugh that made Jon fall in love with him. “I see you, Jon,”_

_He’s here,_ Jon thinks dizzy with relief. _He’s here._

They still have a long way to go but Martin doesn’t take his eyes off Jon for a second and neither does Jon, despite it meaning that he has to shuffle backwards painfully slowly. He doesn’t even realise that they’re outside until he feels the cold air on his face and hears Tim gasp somewhere behind him. 

Martin hesitates for a second then again, still technically inside the institute, feet on it’s old wooden floorboards while Jon stands on the concrete pavement. Jon closes his eyes then, thinks about just how important Martin has become to him, about how much he needs him to be here next to him, in the darkened streets of London. 

And he pulls Martin’s hands gently, prompting him to step forward. 

Jon opens his eyes and Martin is finally there, still clutching his hands. He looks astounded and disheveled, hair overgrown, clothes rumpled and smelling of damp and salt. But all Jon can see is the freckles splashed across his face, the softness of his dark brown hair, the pink flush of his cheeks in the cold night air, all those little details he never could have distinguished before. 

“You’re beautiful,” he breathes out, and Martin’s ears grow red, face breaking into a grin as tears start trickling down his face and Jon can finally press a kiss to that damn dimple. 

He makes a sound between a laugh and a sob and buries his face into Jon’s neck and Jon finds themselves enveloped in Tim and Sasha’s arms. Oh. He’d actually forgotten they were there for a second. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll leave you two alone soon,” Tim whispers. 

Jon blushes profusely as Sasha giggles. He’d _completely_ forgotten they were there. 

\- - - 

Jane Prentiss is dead. Burned to ashes. 

Still, Jon finds it difficult to return to his apartment, but when Martin realises his lease had expired a long time ago, Jon is the first to offer, much to Tim’s glee. 

He goes to sleep every night, wrapped in warm arms and whispered conversation and wakes up every morning to the smell of tea and toast. He stumbles to the kitchen as always, and mumbles good mornings into Martin’s shoulder as he hugs him from behind and every time Martin laughs at his slurred, sleepy speech and Jon falls in love just a little bit more. 

**Author's Note:**

> some songs worth mentioning that I listened to while I Brainstormed this fic:  
> ready now (dodie) (SURPRISE, the title is from it)  
> northern lights (MO, Goss)  
> paranormal (HumorUs) (this one especially, it gave me the idea lmao)  
> nobody (mitski)
> 
> \- - -
> 
> ANYWAYS I hope y'all enjoyed!! I put a lot of love and effort into this and I'd love to hear ANY comments !!  
> also special shoutout to my friend who looked this over for me.. if ur reading this I hope ur having a good day


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